Space Situational Awareness - SSA

The geostationary ring

ESAC hosts the team for the new European Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Preparatory Programme. The SSA initiative will provide Europe and its citizens with complete and accurate information on objects orbiting Earth, on the space environment and on threats coming from space.

In developing this European SSA system the objective is to establish the architecture of the future European SSA system; governance, data policy and data security aspects; and precursor services in the areas of space surveillance, space weather and Near-Earth Objects (NEOs).

The SSA programme will, ultimately, enable Europe to autonomously detect, predict and assess the risk to life and property due to remnant man-made space objects, re-entries, in-orbit explosions and release events, in-orbit collisions, disruption of missions and satellite-based service capabilities, potential impacts of Near Earth Objects, and the effects of space weather phenomena on space- and ground-based infrastructure.